Back ...

... from Spain.

Flew over on Friday returned yesterday evening.

Rather tired now. Not least as I have a bit of a cold due to the hotel's air conditioning.

I've also eaten rather a lot of steak. Well, I was in Spain.

And I did queue for two hours for a train ticket which, in UK or Germany, could be taken from a machine but in Spain requires at least 20 minutes at the counter.

But that's not important as my mate was getting married and he reads this blog.

This Friday I have an interview at a company in Munich. So this evening I thought I'd better read up about the company, recall which job I had applied for and find out exactly where the interview will take place.

All done.

Bed time now.

Night night.


Achoo.

Busy

Sometimes I think I'm busier when I don't have a job.

Today I did my German homework and then went for my next German lesson. It's pretty intensive stuff and afterwards my brain is totally mashed.

At the beginning of the lesson my teacher improved, radically, the reply email I had drafted asking for an interview's date to be changed.

During the lesson my friend and business partner tried to call me from Finland.

After the lesson I walked home, perhaps two or more miles.

During this journey my old boss, where I worked last, called me and said she might be able to ask me to come back to them for a while. But she'd know next week.

That would be nice.

Then I got home and phoned an agency about a job for which I applied yesterday. It turned out that the job, based in Munich, required native German. Now, I think you can ask for fluent German but I think asking for native German is discriminatory. Anyone in the EU, who speaks fluent German, should be able to apply.

Anyway I don't ... yet.

But the agency had a similar job, for the same company, in Vienna. I confirmd my interest.

After the call was finished my old boss called again.

They've decided they need the resource and could I start next week.

Absolutely.

So, next week I'm back in work. Not sure for how long and I'll continue pursuing good roles here. But with a bit less urgency ... for now.

Oh, and I'll still going off to Spain on Friday for my friend's wedding.

And I'll still be taking German lessons, as intensive as possible considering I'll now have less time.

Oh again, I'll still be updating this blog.

Oh, the stress

The BBC news web site has an article about the stress of redundancy, for those who aren't made redundant!

A bite I think

Before Christmas I applied for a job with a large company in Munich.

Today I received an email in German. It seems to be inviting me to an inteview.

Das ist ein Bite.

Great, super.

But ...

They've set a date that I'm supposed to fly out to Spain for a friend's wedding.

I mean he's only a mate, I've only known him since 1984. He is still a twat.

But ... but, well, he's one of the few readers of this blog, it's not every day he gets married and he is a mate. So, I'm going to Spain and the company will have to reschedule the meeting.

Not sure how to word that in German but I'll be working on it.

Wednesday is a job hunting day

But everyday isn't Wednesday yet (you may have to be a hash house harrier to understand that).

Anyway, today I applied for two jobs. Which is good as that means I've applied for five jobs this week.

There are results and there are reasons

Yesterday I didn't apply for any jobs.

Look, I had a German lesson in the morning, then I went to the gym in the afternoon, then I got fed up and went for some beers in the evening ...

So I didn't look.

OK?

More activitiy

As well as job hunt I did a few other things:

• found out about a Munich Toastmasters club, I'll go along to tomorrow's meeting
• found out about another Munich Toastmasters club, I'll go along to Wednesday's meeting

(er, so I can chose between the two)

• signed up for a meeting of the American German Business Club in Munich. I'm neither German, nor American but apparently that's fine with them
• signed up for a Xing (used to openBC) networking meeting in the beginning of February.

Anything else? Oh yes I tried to join in with the CareerTalk skypecast but it wasn't working. So, instead I phoned (over normal Skype, which did work) the host who works in San Jose. We'll try again next week.

Maybe if Skype don't get their finger out I'll send them my c.v.

And, er ... I applied for a total of three jobs.

It's funny, two of them wanted very good English. They wrote this, along with the rest of their adverts, in German. So, I applied, but in English ... very good English I like to think.

German on-line apps

Just completed one for a large German company.

I hate these.

Worst, their form wasn't working completely 100%. More reason then, for them to recruit me so I can get it sorted out (I didn't mention that though ... not that I had the opportunity ... the covering letter bit wasn't working).

Crap management

Article on the BBC website about how managers feel there would be productivity improvements if they could sack 5% of the workforce per year.

Well, I've got an idea for even better productivity: sack these managers with such stupid views.

Now, I've - er - worked people out of roles. Sometimes it has to be done. But it's the job of the manager to get the best out of people, even people who are having performance problems.

Oh well

This week I applied for a total of three jobs.

If I was in the UK I would be quite dismayed with this number. But I'm in Munich so I'm not sure it's too bad.

One of the jobs for which I applied turned out to have already been taken.

Oh well.

So, not a great week. But I did start German lessons and I have been to the gym three times this week.

Tomorrow is my day off, from job hunting.

Skype to the rescue

So, I've found a good German teacher.

But she's abroad for a couple of months starting next week.

When we met this morning, for the second lesson, we both had the same solution: Skype .

We'll conduct lessons over it, hopefully including the video function it has.

That's the idea. Next week we'll see how well it works.

This week I'm having lessons with her probably every day and, amongst other things, that should help us build a rapport - a useful thing to have for the video calls in subsequent weeks.

Busy, slow today

Well, it was busy on the busy front:

• I had another German lesson - good
• I went to the gym - good
• I actually did some research work for the Finnish business (but I'm not updating that blog just yet) - could be good
• I setup my iPAQ which will very soon replace my old Palm T3 -bloody essential

But it wasn't busy on the job hunting front:

• Today applied for no jobs. I didn't even look.

Bad, bad. Although I'm getting back into good habits (gym, language study) I must keep the momentum on job hunting.

Quiet

Unlike last week it seems a slow start.

Didn't apply for any jobs yesterday. Today, only one application.

I did, however, go to the gym yesterday, for the first time in months.

Muscles now hurt.

And today I had my first German one-to-one lesson.

Brain now hurts.

Schmoozing

or networking as I call. Guy Kawasaki has some good tips on this.

Trepedation

On Friday I wrote a bit about this.

Today I returned to Munich.

Normally I job hunt on Sundays. But I won't today. Start, instead first thing tomorrow.

And I'm not going to be too methodical about planning what I need to do.

Sure, I will do some planning over the next few days but the important thing is to get stuck in.

Round up

There's been no change from yesterday.

I didn't look today after my phone call. Kinda ran out of steam.

Anyway, this week I applied for six jobs and received three bites.

Which is good.

Nevertheless I'm getting some trepidation about going back to Munich. Apart from the flight being booked I have a flat which I'm contractually obliged to keep renting for some months.

And in fact it'll be a better environment to focus on job hunting, learning German seriously and requalififying for PRINCE 2.

Moreover, if I do get a job in Munich I'll be well chuffed.

But there's still some trepedation. Germany is a hard place to get a job, even for those with German, damn it even for Germans.

So, I've set myself quite a challenge.

LinkedIn ...

some advice, found off Lifehacker .

Oops

Whilst I'm in England I make calls to Germany using Skype. Much cheaper.

Today a company, to whom I had applied on line yesterday, emailed me asking for references. Nothing indicative in that, just what they like to have.

Their email was in German so I wanted to ask if there was any point applying now, when my German isn't that good (in their German written advert they had asked for good English but hadn't mentioned skills in German, so I applied, in English).

I phoned the person who had emailed me.

We spoke in German but I couldn't get a word. Really, I couldn't hear she was saying.

I kept turning up the volume on my headset but it made no difference.

Eventually I realised that the headset wasn't plugged in. I was using the laptop's built-in microphone and headset.

D'uh.

Things improved after that. The lady agreed that I should improve my German but said there was no harm applying now.

Beaten to it

This morning I looked at Skypecasts (Skype's new live chat thing).

And I had an idea: why don't I set up a Skypecast about job hunting ideas?

Then I looked through the directors of Skypecasts and found this has already been done (Career Talk).

Worse, the recruitment company behind it has a blog which covers job hunting issues and even worse than that, it's quite good!

So far

It's Thursday, in the first week of 2007. So far this week I've applied for six positions.

And I received three bites.

One of these was for a permanent job in Munich. The other two were for contract assignments in London.

You can't win

Some recruiters want to see my technical skills on my c.v.

Others don't.

For example today one agency, who liked my c.v., felt it was emphasizing IT too much. They were looking for a more general project manager with my skills - which I gained in IT.

So I amended my c.v., mainly by removing "IT" wherever it occurred.

Confused

Made a few calls today. Some for contracts in London, but one for a job in Munich.

During one of these calls I gave my desired daily rate in Sterling and also pointed out that I could fly back to Munich at the weekends.

She then pointed out that I had called her about a permanent job in Munich.

"Ah, yes..."

I quickly recovered the situation and she's sending the c.v. over to her client.

A bite.

Bit of a job hunting day

Today I applied for three jobs. And yesterday I applied for one job too.

Which is good. Traditionally my target has been five jobs per week.

I have my doubts that I could consistently achieve this when looking for a job in Munich.

For a start, the job situtation in Germany is still not very good.

Then, quite a few jobs ask for excellent levels of German. I don't apply for those. But otherwise, if a job is advertised in German, and it seems appropriate, then I do apply, in English.

A couple of todays jobs were written in German. Well, I can read them fine so I felt there was no harm in applying.

The third one was for a contract in London. I don't really want to work in London. But the description did seem rather appropriate (at least the first time I read it) so I applied. And it may well be possible for me to fly into London during the week and fly back to Munich at the weekends.

Most contractors do it the other way round, so maybe I'll be zigging when others are zagging.

Week speling

Saw this mini-quiz on the BBC's news web-site relating to spelling on c.v.s .

If you tell me your score I'll tell you mine.

Connection sluts

As you know I tend to decry the value of Linkedin and Xing users who have hundreds of connections. I'm also wary of people who ask to connect with me but don't write a personalized message. I specifically ask for this on the Linkedin site.

Anyway, I was recently contacted by one of these connecters.

The thing is he could actually be a useful contact. In fact he works in a company associated with one of my recent clients (at a rather high level).

So, I've accepted him as one of my contacts. I'm going to see if I can get value from this approach. I've sent him a personal message including the fact that I'm an experienced manager now available.

Thanks TJ

One of the Munich Hash House Harriers lives in Switzerland but "runs" with us frequently.

He's given me other leads but today spotted a suitable looking job in Monster and emailed it to me.

It was quite appropriate so I sent off my c.v. and will call them (an agency) tomorrow.

Good news

eweek. com has an encouraging article, What's on Tap for IT Pros in 2007?

Ok, so it clearly focusses on the US market. But it bodes well globally.

In anycase I wouldn't mind a short stint working in the States. Although I'm quite content to stay in Europe.

Taxis

Yesterday I went up to London and, with a friend, went to a bar in Chelsea. It's quite a bar, bit exclusive but rather nice.

We took a taxi there.

On the way, a man ran across the road in front of the taxi. He almost got away with it but didn't. The taxi clipped him and he fell over.

The taxi driver pulled over about 30 meters away from the incident. People were looking at the man who was standing.

After a while we got out of the taxi and went over to him. Just to make sure.

He was covered in blood. Not only was his nose cut but he also had a nosebleed. There was an awful lot of blood on the ground.

The man was coherent and seemed stable. But he was surprised when I said his nose would need stitching. No medical training needed for that one, it was obvious.

Anyway, I eventually realised that no-one had called an ambulance.

I couldn't see why not. He'd been hit by a taxi (London taxis are very big, solid things), his nose was cut and he was drenched in blood. Amongst other things there was a risk of hypothermia due to his clothes being so wet (and it being a cold night). Plus shock, plus any other internal injuries he may have suffered but not noticed due to alcohol and a general shocked state.

So, I called the emergency services. They disputed with me that I was in Chelsea. The cheek. But I was standing next to a street sign, and was wearing a Barbour jacket, so I eventually convinced them.

A few minutes later the ambulance came along and I went on to the bar.

No further incidents to report (oh except I met a rather nice girl in the bar, exchanged numbers but was too, er, tired today to arrange a meet-up before going back down south).